With the advent of the Internet, society has witnessed the expansion of a global packet-switched network into an ever-increasing number of homes and businesses. This has enabled an ever-increasing number of users to communicate with each other, primarily utilizing electronic communications, such as e-mail and instant messaging. Meanwhile, advances have been made in delivering voice communication over packet-switched networks, driven primarily by the cost advantage of placing long-distance calls over the packet-switched networks, but also by the ability to deliver advanced service features to users. This cost advantage can be enjoyed by both a service provider delivering the voice communication over the packet-switched network service (in a form of lower operating cost), as well as the user who subscribes to the services of such a service provider (in a form of lower service subscription fees). Technology dealing with the delivery of real-time voice communication over the packet-switched network is generally referred to as voice-over-packet, voice-over-IP or, simply, VoIP.
As is well appreciated in the art, the delivery technology for VoIP-based systems is fundamentally different from the delivery technology for the traditional PSTN-based systems. This is true not only for the underlining technology, but also for the user experience. For example, in the VOIP-based systems, a user has to “log into” a communication client (ex. a VoIP phone or a soft client executed on a computing apparatus) before being able to make or receive calls. Typically, the user has to input a user name and a password into the communication client. The communication client then establishes a connection with a soft switch and logs into the telephony service using the user name and the password.
Another peculiarity associated with VoIP-based systems is that connections are established in a point-to-point fashion. Accordingly, the user has to log into each of the communication points, which the user is desirous of potentially using to make outgoing calls or to receive incoming calls. If a particular dwelling, be it a house or a business, has multiple communication clients installed thereat and the user is desirous of potentially using all of these communication clients to make and receive calls, the user would have to log into each of the multiple communication clients. Potentially, the user would need to log out of some or all of the multiple communication clients at some point in time thereafter. There is currently no means in the art to simplify the log in process for the user.